Now environmentalists say we need the minerals that they’ve been locking up for decades
Guest post by Paul Driessen
“China’s control of a key minerals market has US military thinkers and policy makers worried about access to materials that are essential for 21st-century technology like smartphones – and smart bombs,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Plus stealth fighter jets, digital cameras, computer hard drives – and wind turbine magnets, solar panels, hybrid and electric car batteries, compact fluorescent light bulbs, catalytic converters, and more.
China’s dominance in mining and processing 17 “rare earth” metals “has raised alarms in Washington,” says the Journal. These unique metallic elements have powerful magnetic properties that make them sine qua non for high-tech, miniaturized and renewable energy equipment.
China currently produces fully 97% of the world’s rare-earth oxides, the raw materials that can be refined into metals and blended into specialty alloys for defense, commercial and power-generation components. However, the Middle Kingdom has slashed its rare-earth oxide and metal exports.
Beijing claims to be motivated by environmental concerns – reflecting the fact that rare earths are present in very low concentrations, mountains of rock must be mined, crushed and processed to get usable metals, and every step in the process requires oil, gasoline or coal-based electricity. A more likely reason is that the Chinese want to manufacture the finished goods, thereby creating countless “green” factory jobs, paid for with US and EU taxpayer subsidies, channeled through GE, Siemens, Vestas and other “socially responsible” companies that then install the systems across Europe and the USA.
So here we are, long beholden to foreign powers for petroleum – and newly dependent on foreign powers for “green” energy. National security issues (direct defense needs and indirect dependency issues) once again rise to the fore, and the Defense Department, Government Accountability Office, House Science and Technology Committee and others are busily issuing reports, holding hearings and expressing consternation. Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) worries that the United States is being “held hostage.”
As well he should. However, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves – or more precisely in our militant environmentalists.
Back in 1978, I ruined a perfectly pleasant hike in a RARE-II roadless area, by asking an impertinent question. “How do you defend prohibiting any kind of energy or mineral exploration in wilderness study areas?” I asked Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rupert Cutler and Forest Service Chief John McGuire, “The 1964 Wilderness Act expressly allows and encourages those activities, so that Congress and the American people can make informed decisions about how to manage these lands, based on extensive information about both surface and subsurface values. How do you defend ignoring that provision?”
“I don’t think Congress should have enacted that provision,” Dr. Cutler replied.
“That may be your opinion,” I responded. “But Congress did enact it, and you are obligated by your oath of office to follow the law the way it was written, not the way you think it should have been written.”
“I think we’ve said enough to this guy,” Cutler said to Chief McGuire, and they walked away.
A couple months later, I asked the Denver Sierra Club wilderness coordinator a related question: “Why are you focusing so heavily on areas with the best energy and mineral potential? Isn’t that going to impact prices, jobs and national security?”
“Americans use too much energy, and they’re not going to change voluntarily,” he said. “The only way to make them change is to take the resources away. And the best way to do that is put them in wilderness.”
And every other restrictive land use category that arrogant, thoughtless activists, bureaucrats, judges and politicians can devise, he might have added. Which is how we got where we are today.
As of 1994, over 410 million acres were effectively off limits to mineral exploration and development, according to consulting geologist Courtland Lee, who prepared probably the last definitive analysis, published in The Professional Geologist. That’s 62% of the nation’s public lands – an area nearly equal to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming combined – primarily in Alaska and our eleven westernmost Lower 48 states. Today, sixteen years later, the situation is much worse – with millions more acres locked up in wilderness, park, preserve, wildlife refuge, wilderness study and other restrictive land use categories, or simply made unavailable by bureaucratic fiat or foot-dragging.
Due to forces unleashed by plate tectonics, these rugged lands contain some of the most highly mineralized mountain and desert areas in North America. They almost certainly hold dozens, perhaps hundreds, of world-class rare-earth deposits. The vast mineral wealth extracted from those areas since the mid-1850s portends what might still be there, to be discovered by modern prospecting gadgets and methods. But unless laws and attitudes change, we will never know.
How ironic. First eco-activists lock up the raw materials. Then they force-feed us “renewable energy standards” that require the very materials they’ve locked up, which we’ve never much needed until now. Thus China (and perhaps other countries a few years hence) will happily fill the breach, creating green jobs beyond our borders, selling us the finished components, and using our tax dollars to subsidize the imported wind turbines, solar panels and CFL bulbs that are driving energy costs through the roof.
Science historian James Burke became famous for chronicling the “Connections” between successions of past discoveries and achievements and various modern technologies. Unfortunately, today’s increasingly powerful and power-hungry activists, jurists, legislators and regulators cannot see the connection between their actions and the economic havoc they leave in their wake.
Of course, there is little incentive for them to do so. They know they will rarely be held accountable. Others may freeze jobless in the dark – but most of them will keep their jobs, perks, pensions, positions of power over our lives, economy and civil rights progress.
However, there are bright spots. The upcoming elections offer hope for a general House (and Senate) cleaning. A recent poll found that a third of all Americans don’t want to pay even $12 a year in higher energy costs, even to create “green” jobs or forestall Climate Armageddon. Many people are simply fed up – with Washington, and with constant assertions of imminent eco-catastrophes.
A steady stream of shale-gas discoveries in Europe and the United States suggests that we still have plentiful supplies of cheap natural gas. Evidence is mounting that petroleum is abiogenic in origin – and natural forces deep inside the Earth are constantly creating new hydrocarbons from elemental carbon and hydrogen. Both developments undermine a principle argument for pricey, land-intensive, intermittent wind and solar power: that we are running out of “fossil fuels.”
Just north of the Mojave Desert, near Mountain Pass, California, Molycorp is working to restart mining operations at the largest rare-earth deposit outside of China. They had been suspended in 2002, for economic, permitting and environmental reasons that have since been resolved. China’s Baotou Rare Earth Company was a happy beneficiary of the circumstances and US regulatory excesses.
Now there is hope that common sense will prevail at Mountain Pass, new processing methods will reduce costs and environmental impacts, and exploration may one day be permitted in areas locked up by Cutler & Company. Too many technologies depend on lanthanides to keep US deposits under lock and key.
Radical greens may not give a spotted owl hoot about military needs. But they may care enough about preserving their dream of a hydrocarbon-free future, while a few politicians may want to ensure that tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies for wind and solar power and electric cars don’t all head overseas.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.Cfact.org) and Congress of Racial Equality (www.CongressOfRacialEquality.org), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.
Greens shackle national security – and renewable energy
Now environmentalists say we need the minerals that they’ve been locking up for decades
Paul Driessen
“China’s control of a key minerals market has US military thinkers and policy makers worried about access to materials that are essential for 21st-century technology like smartphones – and smart bombs,” the Wall Street Journal reports. Plus stealth fighter jets, digital cameras, computer hard drives – and wind turbine magnets, solar panels, hybrid and electric car batteries, compact fluorescent light bulbs, catalytic converters, and more.
China’s dominance in mining and processing 17 “rare earth” metals “has raised alarms in Washington,” says the Journal. These unique metallic elements have powerful magnetic properties that make them sine qua non for high-tech, miniaturized and renewable energy equipment.
China currently produces fully 97% of the world’s rare-earth oxides, the raw materials that can be refined into metals and blended into specialty alloys for defense, commercial and power-generation components. However, the Middle Kingdom has slashed its rare-earth oxide and metal exports.
Beijing claims to be motivated by environmental concerns – reflecting the fact that rare earths are present in very low concentrations, mountains of rock must be mined, crushed and processed to get usable metals, and every step in the process requires oil, gasoline or coal-based electricity. A more likely reason is that the Chinese want to manufacture the finished goods, thereby creating countless “green” factory jobs, paid for with US and EU taxpayer subsidies, channeled through GE, Siemens, Vestas and other “socially responsible” companies that then install the systems across Europe and the USA.
So here we are, long beholden to foreign powers for petroleum – and newly dependent on foreign powers for “green” energy. National security issues (direct defense needs and indirect dependency issues) once again rise to the fore, and the Defense Department, Government Accountability Office, House Science and Technology Committee and others are busily issuing reports, holding hearings and expressing consternation. Congressman Bart Gordon (D-TN) worries that the United States is being “held hostage.”
As well he should. However, the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves – or more precisely in our militant environmentalists.
Back in 1978, I ruined a perfectly pleasant hike in a RARE-II roadless area, by asking an impertinent question. “How do you defend prohibiting any kind of energy or mineral exploration in wilderness study areas?” I asked Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Rupert Cutler and Forest Service Chief John McGuire, “The 1964 Wilderness Act expressly allows and encourages those activities, so that Congress and the American people can make informed decisions about how to manage these lands, based on extensive information about both surface and subsurface values. How do you defend ignoring that provision?”
“I don’t think Congress should have enacted that provision,” Dr. Cutler replied.
“That may be your opinion,” I responded. “But Congress did enact it, and you are obligated by your oath of office to follow the law the way it was written, not the way you think it should have been written.”
“I think we’ve said enough to this guy,” Cutler said to Chief McGuire, and they walked away.
A couple months later, I asked the Denver Sierra Club wilderness coordinator a related question: “Why are you focusing so heavily on areas with the best energy and mineral potential? Isn’t that going to impact prices, jobs and national security?”
“Americans use too much energy, and they’re not going to change voluntarily,” he said. “The only way to make them change is to take the resources away. And the best way to do that is put them in wilderness.”
And every other restrictive land use category that arrogant, thoughtless activists, bureaucrats, judges and politicians can devise, he might have added. Which is how we got where we are today.
As of 1994, over 410 million acres were effectively off limits to mineral exploration and development, according to consulting geologist Courtland Lee, who prepared probably the last definitive analysis, published in The Professional Geologist. That’s 62% of the nation’s public lands – an area nearly equal to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming combined – primarily in Alaska and our eleven westernmost Lower 48 states. Today, sixteen years later, the situation is much worse – with millions more acres locked up in wilderness, park, preserve, wildlife refuge, wilderness study and other restrictive land use categories, or simply made unavailable by bureaucratic fiat or foot-dragging.
Due to forces unleashed by plate tectonics, these rugged lands contain some of the most highly mineralized mountain and desert areas in North America. They almost certainly hold dozens, perhaps hundreds, of world-class rare-earth deposits. The vast mineral wealth extracted from those areas since the mid-1850s portends what might still be there, to be discovered by modern prospecting gadgets and methods. But unless laws and attitudes change, we will never know.
How ironic. First eco-activists lock up the raw materials. Then they force-feed us “renewable energy standards” that require the very materials they’ve locked up, which we’ve never much needed until now. Thus China (and perhaps other countries a few years hence) will happily fill the breach, creating green jobs beyond our borders, selling us the finished components, and using our tax dollars to subsidize the imported wind turbines, solar panels and CFL bulbs that are driving energy costs through the roof.
Science historian James Burke became famous for chronicling the “Connections” between successions of past discoveries and achievements and various modern technologies. Unfortunately, today’s increasingly powerful and power-hungry activists, jurists, legislators and regulators cannot see the connection between their actions and the economic havoc they leave in their wake.
Of course, there is little incentive for them to do so. They know they will rarely be held accountable. Others may freeze jobless in the dark – but most of them will keep their jobs, perks, pensions, positions of power over our lives, economy and civil rights progress.
However, there are bright spots. The upcoming elections offer hope for a general House (and Senate) cleaning. A recent poll found that a third of all Americans don’t want to pay even $12 a year in higher energy costs, even to create “green” jobs or forestall Climate Armageddon. Many people are simply fed up – with Washington, and with constant assertions of imminent eco-catastrophes.
A steady stream of shale-gas discoveries in Europe and the United States suggests that we still have plentiful supplies of cheap natural gas. Evidence is mounting that petroleum is abiogenic in origin – and natural forces deep inside the Earth are constantly creating new hydrocarbons from elemental carbon and hydrogen. Both developments undermine a principle argument for pricey, land-intensive, intermittent wind and solar power: that we are running out of “fossil fuels.”
Just north of the Mojave Desert, near Mountain Pass, California, Molycorp is working to restart mining operations at the largest rare-earth deposit outside of China. They had been suspended in 2002, for economic, permitting and environmental reasons that have since been resolved. China’s Baotou Rare Earth Company was a happy beneficiary of the circumstances and US regulatory excesses.
Now there is hope that common sense will prevail at Mountain Pass, new processing methods will reduce costs and environmental impacts, and exploration may one day be permitted in areas locked up by Cutler & Company. Too many technologies depend on lanthanides to keep US deposits under lock and key.
Radical greens may not give a spotted owl hoot about military needs. But they may care enough about preserving their dream of a hydrocarbon-free future, while a few politicians may want to ensure that tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies for wind and solar power and electric cars don’t all head overseas.
___________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.Cfact.org) and Congress of Racial Equality (www.CongressOfRacialEquality.org), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.
Duncan:
“There’s lots of government-owned wilderness out west, and none of it has any oil – ”
Hmmm… You sure about that? Take just one area, Glacier National Park. Even a brief perusal of the history suggests otherwise:
http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/region/1/flathead/chap3.htm
Unfortunately, the local representative, Max Baucus, displays exactly the same ‘lock up the resources’ attitude that this post is about:
http://baucus.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=79
Senator Baucus has been working for over a decade to permanently withdraw sensitive lands along the Front from development. He wrote a provision that passed in 2006 that permanently protects the Rocky Mountain Front from oil and gas development.
He seems to be quite proud of himself.
Apollo program discovery: KREEP rocks. Read about it in an 80’s book on Lunar Geology.
Never heard anything about is ever since.
Who’s going to the Moon? Nobody right now.
The Moon is very old in geologic age.
So is the Canadian Shield.
Is Canada developing REE mines? Yes.
You mention the science historian James Burke. I remember watching his Connections series which I thought were brilliant. What ever happened to him?
Here are the articles by Pfeiffer debunking Gold and abiotic oil: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.shtml#abiotic
There is evidence that hot igneous rock plus water produces trace amounts of methane/ethane, but no explanation of how this results in huge deposits in sedimentary rock.
No country has ever manage to subsist without producing goods. Eco-fanatics have ruined every country where they meddled in. Examples abound.
All “modernity”, all the “advances” of technology the world has, the world owes them specially to the ingenuity of people of the USA, and to its freedom which made possible the work of foreigners as Nikola Tesla and hundreds of others. To act against those principles which made all this possible for the world, it is not only a treason to that country but to the world. You must take into account that not everywhere else in the world is even feasible that development as other, and different principles, prevail. As in other cultures where the participation of individuals is denigrated. You must realize, also, that inventions were possible because of the special respect you have for intellectual rights; you don´t find that in the rest of the world, where in spite of official positions, in the real world if an idea appears as one which could be profitable, it will be profited not by the author of it but by anyone else with close links to those in political or economical power.
Even if laboratory studies of hydrocarbon synthesis and isotopic composition suggest a deep ‘abiogenic’ origin for petroleum hydrocarbons, this is almost a moot point. What’s pragmatically important is the recognition of the geologic processes which concentrate petroleum hydrocarbons into deposits that can be located and economically extracted. While the theory of the abiogenic origin of petroleum hydrocarbons may be interesting, like AGW theory, it must overcome a mountain of existing empirical evidence which supports the currently accepted biogenic origin theory. The fact that hydrocarbons are found in fluid inclusions in diamonds is interesting, but I don’t think that means you’re going to drill an exploratory well in or adjacent to a kimberlrte pipe in the absence of some other geologic information!
I’d be interested to know about any currently producing oil or gas fields that don’t conform with the historic and current exploration models for the biogenic origin and occurance of petroleum. I’m not saying that occurances of petroleum solely attributable to an abiogenic origin don’t exist, but that they are not economically significant. I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that nearly all existing fields occur within tectonically created basins where organic debris acculuated in sedimentary deposits which were subsequently deformed to create the traps for the concentration of the migrating hydrocarbons. I know of wells that have produced oil and/or gas from igneous or metamorphic reservoir rocks, but in all of these cases there was a structural connection to a nearby sedimentary source rock.
Grey Lensman says:
October 3, 2010 at 7:26 am
“Another name for oil is hydrocarbons, for good reason.”
Sorry but I beg to differ. Oil is a hydrocarbon but not all hydocarbons are oil. For example methane is a hydrocarbon but methane is not oil. To the best of my knowledge the only hydrocarbons on Titan include methane, ethane, acteylene, ethelyne, and hydrogen cyanide. By photosynthesis methane can be converted into three of the other four hydrocarbons, and hydrogen cyanide, the odd man out, can be formed by the same process provide there is nitrogen present. However none of these hydrocarbons are oil.
As Doug pointed out above geologists have long known of the existence of abiogenic methane. If , as you stated early on, oil is present on Titan then if true it would certainly help to advance the abiogenic petroleum origin hypothesis.
Good luck with finding that reference of oil on Titan, I can only keep an open mind for so long.
Doh! That should be photochemistry not photosynthesis. Off to the back of the class I go.
Please remember the residue ponds of innumerable mines, refineries, where these rare elements have been concentrated. This is the case, for example, scarece elements as Gallium, Indium and Germanium, found in zinc refineries residue ponds.
There are cases, as the one in Thompson, Ca. where there are big ponds containing palladium, and, of course nickel and copper, but because of having a percentage of arsenic, which by “eco-law” it can not be neither processed on the site nor transported to ports these can not be benefited.(in order to reach a place where there are less of eco-nuts around and where it could be possible its recovery)
LazyTeenager says:
October 3, 2010 at 5:37 am
“Anyone have an idea of the stable state of Carbon and hydrogen at deep subsurface temperature and pressures. Is it methane or graphite?”
Neither. The equilibrium state includes a mixture of hydrocarbons. The relative abundances will depend upon the temperature, pressure, carbon/hydrogen ratio, and rock composition. Lighter hydrocarbons are synthesised more readily, but long chain molecules also form, and under various conditions the equilibrium can be shifted towards them. There can be no reasonable scientific doubt that petroleum is continually being synthesised (and broken down again) abiotically deep in the Earth’s crust. There can also be no reasonable scientific doubt that petroleum is continually being synthesised (and broken down) from buried organic remains. Nor can there be any reasonable scientific doubt that petroleum, from whatever source, can be colonised and modified by various bacteria, from the greatest depths at which extreme thermophiles can exist (T<150C) all the way up to the surface. So it's not an "either/or" situation. What fraction of the petroleum and natural gas we extract has a biotic or abiotic origin is not known; the evidence is not unambiguous. Indicators of biotic origin that were once considered conclusive (such as the presence of “organic” markers and the concentration in sedimentary basins) are now known to be consistent with abiotic origin too. For example, finding oil in sedimentary rocks may be merely a selection effect – those are the most drilled, and the most capable of forming reservoirs.
Glad to see so many knowledgeable posters chime in on the origins of hydrocarbons. The link by jr wakefield:
Abiogenic Origin of Hydrocarbons: An Historical Overview
http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf is a pretty fair summary, and would help answer many of Williams questions.
I’ll add one more thing to push the discussion further off topic and into another ideologue tainted controversy— peak oil. While the biotic princples of hydrocarbon are used by some to prop up their arguments about imminent doom from peak oil, I feel that the fact that oil and gas are indeed fossil fuels does not mean we are running out any time soon. We have just been living off the conventional production, and we are transitioning into more unconventional production, such as shale gas, shale oil and oil shale (there is a difference!) and bitumen deposits. While these deposits are currently more difficult to produce, they are vast. Much the way copper production went from native copper, to veins of copper sulfides, to the massive copper porphyries we mine today, oil and gas has gone from small, shallow, flowing wells to deeper, pumped wells, to some of the horizontal multilateral extractions being developed today. Mankind will survive, as we are a pretty smart and adaptable species.
Doug or jrwakefield, I am waiting for a fossil explanation for the super concentrated oil fields in the Alberta Tar sands and Saudi fields. The Alberta tars sand is obvious migrated hydrocarbon. 25% of the Saudi oil production comes from a single field. The tiny country Qatar has 25% of the planet’s “natural” gas reserves. Theories need to explain all of the observations. The origin of “natural” gas and the Alberta tar sand is deep hydrocarbons that have migrated to the surface. Hence the heavy metals in the tar sands which are picked up by as the oil migrates from the core to the surface. (The sand is silicates which does not have heavy metals in it.) The fact that other heavy metals such as gold are found in highly concentrated formation with hydrocarbon residue provides more observational evidence for the process. Plants and marine life do not have heavy metals in them.
This is interesting. The Horn River basin “natural” gas reservoir in British Columbia Canada has an estimated reserve volume of 25% of the total Russian natural gas reserves.
“Horn River Basin
Whenever we talk about unconventional resources, using the right technology is one of the most important factors to consider. With the success of horizontal drilling, producers have had tremendous success unlocking the natural gas from shale reserves. The Horn River Basin, located in British Columbia, is quickly becoming a hotbed for investors. Some have speculated that up to 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas might be contained within the Horn River basin if future discoveries are similar to the success that some of the major players have had.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bc-emerges-as-major-natural-gas-player/article1247539/
“Now, his proposed $3-billion Kitimat liquid natural gas project has the backing of some of the biggest names in the business – including the world’s largest gas importer, Korea Gas Corp., and U.S. gas producers EOG Resources Inc. and Apache Corp. , two key players in the Horn River….”
“…the change from an import to an export facility is emblematic of the changing B.C. economy and the province’s emerging role as a significant gas producer on a global scale.”
“…British Columbia currently produces 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day – less than a quarter of rival Alberta’s output – but the potential at Horn River alone is huge. Companies such as Apache, EOG and EnCana Corp. believe Horn River itself could eventually produce more than four billion cubic feet a day, similar to what is generated at a giant field in Texas called the Barnett Shale…”
“Beyond Horn River, northeastern B.C. appears to be rich with gas trapped in barely porous rock.” (my comment: barely porous rock that has immense amounts of CH4 under very high pressure in it.)
Doug,
Until recently, I believed that although abiotic oil is theoretically possible, known oil reserves are biotic. But this paper by Kennedy et al seems to cast serious doubt on that.
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/17/10976.full.pdf+html
They use physical chemistry to show that at low pressure, H-C compounds quickly degrade to methane. 30kBar pressures seem to be required to lock in the long chain hydrocarbons. They conclude:
‘The pressure of 30 kbar, at which the theoretical analyses of
section 4 predicts that the H–C system must evolve ethane and
heavier hydrocarbon compounds, corresponds to a depth of
more than 100 km. The results of the theoretical analysis shown
in Fig. 2 clearly establish that the evolution of the molecular
components of natural petroleum occur at depth at least as great
as those of the mantle of the Earth, as shown graphically in Fig.
4, in which are represented the thermal and pressure lapse rates
in the depths of the Earth.’
If their calculations are correct, then the question would be, how can biological detritus get into the earth’s mantel to be formed into oil? And if not biological detritus, then that leads only to an inorganic origin. As I say, I am fairly agnostic on this, but this is a serious challenge to the biological origins school of thought.
Doug,
The author of the 2006 paper, that you provide a link to, curiously appears to not have read Thomas Gold or Kennedy’s papers or for some unexplained reason appears to directly misquote an absolutely fundamental tenet of their theory. Perhaps the author of this paper should have attended the 2008 Sloan Deep Carbon workshop.
The CH4 is converted to longer chain molecules at high pressures at roughly 100 km depths. Gold and Kennedy specifically state that. Kennedy in fact shows the chemical reaction to turn long chain kergen (supposedly biological source that is magically turned in to light crude oil) into light short chain hydrocarbons does not occur at the depths were the light crude oil is found.
I am waiting for your explanation as to why there are super concentrated natural gas and petroleum fields and the source of the heavy metals in Alberta Tar sands. If you look up earlier in this thread there is my comment on how the deep hydrocarbon source explains the formation of the planet’s oceans and atmosphere. (I explain how the late veneer theory cannot explain the observations and how a deep hydrocarbon source can.) A theory must explain all observations. As I note the scientific puzzle is not just what is the origin of “natural” gas and crude oil.
http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf
“However, there is a fundamental flaw in Thomas Gold’s theory of abiogenic petroleum formation. As previously pointed out, methane can only be converted to higher hydrocarbons at pressures >30 kbar corresponding to a depth of ~100 km below the Earth’s surface. The proposed reaction of methane to produce higher hydrocarbons above this depth and, in particular, in the upper layers of the Earth’s crust is therefore not consistent with the second law of thermodynamics.” (Comment: What is the point for this author to misquote a fundamental tenet of Kennedy and Gold’s abiogenic theory?”)
Sloan Deep Carbon Workshop (Sponsored by the US department of Energy)
https://www.gl.ciw.edu/workshops/sloan_deep_carbon_workshop_may_2008
“To date, consideration of the global carbon cycle has focused primarily on near-surface (i.e., relatively low-pressure and temperature) phenomena, with the tacit assumption that oceans, atmosphere and shallow surface environments represent an essentially closed system with respect to biologically available carbon. However, recent data and theoretical analyses from a variety of sources suggest that this assumption may be false. Experimental discoveries of facile high-pressure and temperature organic synthesis and complex interactions between organic molecules and minerals, field observations of deep microbial ecosystems and of anomalies in petroleum geochemistry, and theoretical models of lower crust and upper mantle carbon sources and sinks demand a careful reappraisal of the deep carbon cycle.”
Starts with a post on eco-engineered scarcity, ends with discussion on abiogenic oil. Must be a slow day.
Just remember, no matter which way the hydrocarbons are generated, there’s still a generation rate. “Fossil fuels” are still being made. While ultimately the supply is endless, and between what we’ve found and what we will find there’s enough for our energy needs for hundreds of years, we’re still using them faster than they’re getting replenished. So please, none of that “Abiogenic oil, infinite supply, as much as we’ll ever need!” stuff, alright?
😉
Kadaka,
“So please, none of that “Abiogenic oil, infinite supply, as much as we’ll ever need!” stuff, alright?
;-)”
Of course. I don’t think anyone here is using the abiotic theory for political reasons – one seeks the truth for its own sake.
FTA:
“Americans use too much energy, and they’re not going to change voluntarily. The only way to make them change is to take the resources away. And the best way to do that is put them in wilderness.”
What wasn’t in the article…:
“Now excuse me, John Travolta’s kindly offered his 707 so we can get to Cancun.”
“Dang that Humvee is hard to get into”….
William says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:20 am
Doug or jrwakefield, I am waiting for a fossil explanation for the super concentrated oil fields in the Alberta Tar sands and Saudi fields. The Alberta tars sand is obvious migrated hydrocarbon. 25% of the Saudi oil production comes from a single field.
William, there is absolutely no problem explaining those fields, their size, their hydrocarbons, their traces of heavy metals through well established geologic principles. They are adjacent to thick, rich, organic source rocks, and have very large drainage areas for each structure. Geologic time is a marvelous thing. Given some time, organic material in those source rocks accumulated in huge quantities. The producible hydrocarbons are a mere fraction of the accumulated preserved organic matter.
William says:
October 3, 2010 at 10:20 am
Hence the heavy metals in the tar sands which are picked up by as the oil migrates from the core to the surface. (The sand is silicates which does not have heavy metals in it.) The fact that other heavy metals such as gold are found in highly concentrated formation with hydrocarbon residue provides more observational evidence for the process. Plants and marine life do not have heavy metals in them.
William, there are no pure silicate sediments. They have all sorts of trace minerals. In the Cretaceous of Alberta, they are regularly interbedded with volcanic ash, which contains traces any deep mantle metal you want.. Circulating fluids pick up those metals and dump them when a reducing agent, such as a hydrocarbon is encountered. This is why so many chrome-uranium -vanadium deposits are found in petrified wood rich units of Mesozoic sandstones of the American Southwest.
I am sure you have made up your mind. Fine. I suggest you invest in drilling a few wells in tectonic zones which lack sediments. We know oil can be reservoired in fractured igneous rock. If the source is from the mantle, you should find some significant reserves.
Enneagram says:
October 3, 2010 at 9:11 am
No country has ever manage to subsist without producing goods. Eco-fanatics have ruined every country where they meddled in. Examples abound.
Our glorious politicians and money markets lived high off the hog for a couple of decades trading down at the global pawn shop.
Now that the Great Recession has hit, it’s become abundantly clear what was suspected all along: A pure consumer society is not sustainable.
The eco movement to lock it all up means we cannot move forward, in the present game plan, without another trip to the pawn shop. We are certain to lose if we play the global pawn shop game, so there is no sense in playing it. We are losing right now.
What’s the way out? Get rid of the leadership that got us in this awful mess. Throw them out in November.
Then, once we are rid of the corrupt politicians, Sequestrians, Global Trade worshipers, Fed outsourcers and Wall Street Big Bank bailout kings, we can start over.
Estimated time for repair: 15-20 years.
“I am waiting for a fossil explanation for the super concentrated oil fields in the Alberta Tar sands”
Google “alberta tar sands geology” Specifically http://www.see.ualberta.ca/pdfs/Uncertainty%20of%20Alberta%20Oil%20Sands%20-%20Job.pdf
Saudi Arabia you need to read the book Twighlight In the Desert by Matt Simmons. He goes into very detailed geology on how all the producing fields were formed, including Ghawar. Basically, they are all mobalized from deeper source rocks capped by hard impenitrable folded limestones. Google “gharwar geology” such as http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/b2202-h/b2202-h-508.pdf
As for peak oil, let’s be clear what it is and is not. Peak oil is not about how much is in the ground. Even a good conventional field once exhausted leaves as much as 60% behind that is physically not extractable. Peak oil is about flow rates and ERoEI. Unconventional fields have very low flow rates, and very low ERoEI. The Alberta Tar sands is flat out at 1.5mb/day. Their goal is 3mb/day in the next 20 years. The US currently consumes some 20mb/day. Do the math. The rate of increase of production from unconvensional sources cannot keep up with depletion from existing old fields.
ERoEI is vital, as once it takes more energy to extract the energy in the oil, what’s the point? Ghawar in its early days was 100:1. Now it’s less than 20:1 as it is in tertiary recovery (last stage before a field’s death). The tar sands in Alberta for the surface mining only is 6:1. And that’s just the rate at the location, not including further refining and transportation down stream. In situ extraction would very likely be half that.
William, read up about the “oil window” then you will see why abiotic is not possible. http://oilandgasgeology.com/ Oil cannot form at depth because it’s too damn hot. It oxidizes any hydrocarbons. If Oil is abiotic how come there are none in exposed Precambrian rocks like the Canadian Shield?
Heavy metals get deposited in oil as the oil migrates through porous rocks as it moves up to the surface. In fact, they can even match the metals to the very rocks they came from, showing the path the oil took. Google Tupi geology, you will see they have identified the organic source rock for that field off Brazil.
Horn River shale gas: http://www.geocanada2010.ca/uploads/abstracts_new/view.php?item_id=481
“Not every shale deposit works as a shale gas play. The ideal candidate should be thick, brittle, organic-bearing, highly pressured and thermally mature. The right combination of all of these criteria in Horn River has resulted in one of the best shale gas prospects discovered to date.”
Note ORGANIC. Shales are formed from thick mud/clay deposits with lots of marine organisms living in it. The NG got there by decomposition of the organisms, trapped in the rock matrix because it cannot escape the rock. The big problem with gas from shale is that the depletion drop off rate is very fast. Within 6 years 80% drop in production, compared to 20 to 30 years for a convensional field.
Doug, it is quite obvious you have not read Thomas Gold’s book and the 100s of papers concerning this issue, nor are you aware of the scientific issues concerning how the planet’s atmosphere and oceans formed.
It appears you have not also read Kennedy’s paper concerning the chemical issue of converting long chain kerogen to short chain hydrocarbons and do not understand the scientific issue. Appeals to geological time, do not change the physics/chemistry. Rocks do not roll up hill if you wait long enough. The API papers (Found in a set called “The Origin of Crude Oil”) noted there was and is no physical explanation for the reaction and then placed the word time in quotation marks “time”, as if quotation marks could make rocks roll up hill. Long chain kerogen does not convert to light crude with time.
You do not understand the issue of the heavy metals. The same very specific amounts (ratios) of heavy metals are found in fields that are geographically and geologically separated. The source hydrocarbon migrated from the same source, picked up the same very specific ratios of heavy metals on its journey. Quite obviously the massive Alberta tar sand deposit is migrated hydrocarbons.
You have not provide an explanation as to why Saudi has 25% of the planet’s hydrocarbon deposits 50% of which is contained in eight fields. You have not explained the massive Qatar natural gas formation. You have not explained the massive concentration of hydrocarbons in the Alberta tars sands. The abiogenic hypothesis can explain super massive concentrations of hydrocarbons. The organic theory cannot.
Read up on this issue and think about the scientific issues. The papers associated with the 2008 Sloan Deep Carbon workshop are a good place to start. Come back if you want to discuss further.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/454269/petroleum/50709/From-kerogen-to-petroleum
http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/2708/earths-late-veneer
“For 30 years, the late-veneer hypothesis has been the dominant paradigm for understanding Earth’s early history, and our ultimate origins,” Humayun said. “Now, with our latest research, we’re suggesting that the late-veneer hypothesis may not be the only way of explaining the presence of certain elements in the Earth’s crust and mantle.”
Munir Humayun, an associate professor in FSU’s Department of Geological Sciences and researcher at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, co-authored a paper, Partitioning of Palladium at High Pressures and Temperatures During Core Formation,”that was recently published in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature Geoscience. The paper provides a direct challenge to the popular “late veneer hypothesis,” a theory which suggests that all of our water, as well as several so-called “iron-loving” elements, were added to the Earth late in its formation by impacts with icy comets, meteorites and other passing objects.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-do-we-know-about-the
“The composition of the ocean offers some clues as to its origin. If all the comets contain the same kind of water ice that we have examined in Comets Halley and Hyakutake- -the only ones whose water molecules we’ve been able to study in detail– then comets cannot have delivered all the water in the earth’s oceans. We know this because the ice in the comets contains twice as many atoms of deuterium (a heavy isotope of hydrogen) to each atom of ordinary hydrogen as we find in seawater.
“At the same time, we know that the meteorites could not have delivered all of the water, because then the earth’s atmosphere would contain nearly 10 times as much xenon (an inert gas) as it actually does. Meteorites all carry this excess xenon. Nobody has yet measured the concentration of xenon in comets, but recent laboratory experiments on the trapping of gases by ice forming at low temperatures suggest that comets do not contain high concentrations of the xenon. A mixture of meteoritic water and cometary water would not work either, because this combination would still contain a higher concentration of deuterium than is found in the oceans.”
Sloan Deep Carbon Workshop (Sponsored by the US department of Energy)
https://www.gl.ciw.edu/workshops/sloan_deep_carbon_workshop_may_2008
“Must be a slow day.”
There is a significant REE deposit recently found in Greenland, it’s supposed to be bigger than China’s. But difficult to get to. The Sudbury Structure also has significant REE, and that is a huge deposit. This is a good over all summary of where they form: http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/mines/ogs/resgeol/rfe/districts/kenora/rec/Rare-Earth%20Elements.pdf